Field size to DPI conversion table (for scanning)

[slowtiger]

This is the result of a meeting with fellow animators last week. If you draw on paper and work in a big studio environment with software like Toons or Animo or ToonBoom Harmony, you never bother about it. But if you're a freelance animator working at home or an independent animator who only has a consumer level scanner, you might find this helpful.

The table translates field size into minimum scanner DPI settings. You need a DPI setting of at least this value to get your artwork into your animation software without loss. The table only uses the height of several common formats, there's no adjustment needed for 4:3 or 16:9 or whatever aspect ratio.

Feel free to share this.

[Animark]

Hi Slowtiger,

thanks for that useful table.

in past projects I've used an online DPI-Calculator like this one, to find the best DPI-Values for my scans:
http://www.cinebyte.de/html/6_DPI-Rechner.html
Just enter your input size (here in mm) and your target output values (in pixel) in the fields to get the minimum DPI value.

I also recommend to scan a minimum of 200 DPI independend of a calculated lower value, because its very difficult to get good quality of the line art with less than 200 dpi. I tested this values a lot with Animo in the past. Animo recomends a minimum of 150 DPI.